Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to control to be executed when at least one of a plurality of lines falls into a disabled state in a communication apparatus having a plurality of lines.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, communication apparatuses having a plurality of lines have prevailed. Especially, in the case of a facsimile apparatuses, when one facsimile apparatus is placed in correspondence with each of the lines to be used, the cost increases, and a large space is required to place the facsimile apparatuses. For this reason, a cost reduction and space savings may be attained by connecting a plurality of lines to one facsimile apparatus.
Furthermore, in recent years, it has become possible to increase the number of lines using a dial-in service. The dial-in service logically increases the number of lines by further giving a new telephone number in addition to a telephone number given to a physically laid line (to be referred to as a physical line hereinafter) without increasing the number of physical lines. In the following description, a line added in this way will be referred to as a logical line.
When using the dial-in service, one or a plurality of logical lines can be added to one physical line. For example, when one subscribes to one physical line with a service provider, a unique telephone number is given to that physical line. Assume that a telephone number “03-1111-1111” is given to the physical line. When one also subscribes to the dial-in service, a new telephone number “03-1111-2222” is given in addition to that of the physical line. That is, even when an incoming call to either the telephone number “03-1111-1111” or “03-1111-2222” arrives, data is received via the same physical line. In this way, using the dial-in service, the number of lines can be increased and a plurality of telephone numbers can be used without increasing the number of physical lines.
When one communication apparatus has a plurality of lines, as described above, one of the plurality of lines of this communication apparatus may be designated as a line used for a specific application. For example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 07-221958, when broadcasting data using lines 1 and 2, control is made to continuously broadcast data via line 1 and to intermittently broadcast data via line 2. As a result, the chance of incoming call reception increases for line 2, and the communication apparatus can be prevented from being busy for a long period of time due to continuous broadcasting.
However, the aforementioned related art does not propose any operation to be executed when one of the plurality of lines of one communication apparatus falls into a disabled state. That is, when a line designated as that used for the specific application falls into a disabled state due to movement of the location of the communication apparatus, canceling of the dial-in service contract, and the like, and a line used for that specific application is no longer available.